The employees at Bare Assets meant the world to her and because of that there were several rules—that if broken—constituted immediate dismissal. The other non-negotiable rule pertained to drugs. She didn't want her business shaded by illegal practices, so random drug testing was a part of the game. If an employee refused to submit to testing, they were shown the door. There was no tolerance for substance abuse. In spite of what the general public might have thought about strippers, the girls who worked at Bare Assets did so to help pay their way through college or were single parents trying to make a better life for their kids. The money they made dancing helped them do that. As their employer, Angie felt responsible for providing them a safe working environment. Stripping might not be an ideal situation for most, but sex sells and these women had bills to pay. She had once done the same and because of it, she was a strong, street-wise business owner.
Waving goodbye to her head bouncer, she drove out of the parking lot and towards an empty house. At the club she was surrounded by laughter, employees and a vast array of men. Once she walked out, it was entirely different. Her personal life was relatively quiet and she preferred it that way. There was no time for emotional liaisons. As far as Angie was concerned, men served a single function and she could get what she needed without being in a relationship, so why bother with the emotional bullshit. One night stands suited her just fine—when there was time.
Having learned her lesson about men the hard way, she avoided them like the plague. Though the lesson had been a difficult one to learn, she had survived and was stronger for it, bitter maybe, but strong.
Six years ago, she could have written a book on how to have a perfectly crappy relationship. Thankfully, those days were over. The new and improved version of the girl she used to be steered clear of romance, love and late night promises. The only pillow talk she engaged in these days was making sure the person on the other pillow knew to lose her number as soon as he left her bed. One night stands did not require sentimental maintenance and left zero opportunity for heartache. She was a woman who knew what she wanted as well as when and how she wanted it.
Lost in her thoughts as she navigated traffic, Angie didn't realize she was being followed until she pulled into her driveway. The glare of headlights beamed in from behind, momentarily blinding her. Once the other driver turned off their lights, her stomach jumped into her chest and somersaulted in the cavity behind her ribcage.
"You’ve got to be kidding me," she moaned. Through slotted eyes, she checked the rear view mirror again. "This can't be happening."
An all too familiar truck was parked behind her, blocking all chances of an easy escape. Taking a deep breath, she silently battled the millions of emotions racing through her mind. After gaining a tiny semblance of control, she turned around in her seat to glare through the windows. Blinking back disbelief, her eyes locked onto the past she had worked so diligently to leave behind.
Chapter 2
When her past and present unexpectedly collide
A meticulously planned future turns into unpredictable chaos.
"What the hell do you want?" she shouted with more fury than intended. Petty niceties had not been her style for quite some time. It had been six years since she had last seen him. That still had not been long enough to erase the pain. Slamming the car door, Angie stalked over to his lifted truck. Her fists were so tightly clenched that she could feel her short fingernails cutting into the palms of her hands. Grateful for the minor distraction of her self-inflicted pain, she clenched her teeth. The two combined acts were just enough to keep her from mentally spiraling out of control.
Smiling, the driver slid innocently out of his vehicle, causing her to immediately envision slapping the smugness right off his handsome, little face. Violence wasn't the answer, but damn it would feel good. Even after all this time he still made her angry. Old emotional battle scars began to itch as he spoke.
"Is that anyway to greet an old friend?"
She cringed. Hadn't Dean said something similar? Why does every Tom, Dick and Harry suddenly seem to think we're friends? she wondered. With fists still clinched into cannons, she planted them firmly on her hips and glared at the man who had once played an important role in her life. Hell, he hadn't just played a role. He had been the supporting actor.
"Other than the greeting we exchanged at my mom's funeral, I haven't seen or talked to you in six years. That hardly classifies you as a friend."
"Given our history, we'll always be friends."
"What are you doing here, Cutter?"
"Since your brother can't seem to talk any sense into you, I thought I'd give it a try. He wants you to come home, Ang. I want you to come home." The pleading tone of his voice was almost enough to make her pull out her hair and run down the street screaming like a mad woman. Cutter Harrison was the sole reason she had become the cynical, yet successfully independent woman she had. Besides unwittingly gifting her that, he had also left her with a collection of shattered dreams and a busted heart. Otherwise, she had gained little else from their five year visit to the planet of romance.
"In case you've failed to notice, I am home and my brother accepted that a long time ago. So cut the bullshit and spill it. Why are you really here?"
"I had to see you. I miss you."
"What?" Someone must have snuck up behind her with a syphoning hose and sucked the oxygen out of her lungs, because she couldn't breathe. The lack of air was obviously making her delusional. After six years, he did not drive all the way from Arkansas to tell her he missed her.
"Come home with me, Ang."
Flabbergasted, she struggled to inflate her lungs with the life giving substance it had lost. She had never been the type to faint, but the world was spinning faster than a twirling top and her legs were threatening to buckle under the pressure. Closing her eyes, she steadied herself and imagined his presence to be a horrible dream, but when she opened them, the horrible dream was realized. He was still there, staring blankly at her.
Attempting to keep the shakiness which was causing her insides to tremble from reaching her voice, she cleared her throat. "This is my home." Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
"You don't believe that any more than I do. You can't possibly think of this as home. You're a country girl, Ang. You don't belong here." He waved his arms to his sides and looked around. The simple gesture was meant to give emphasis to the statement, but all it succeeded in doing was making her feel as if he thought he was talking to the naïve little country mouse that once tended her family's farm in Arkansas. The idea alone was enough to send the rage flooding back into her veins. Unlike love and heartache, anger was an emotion she could easily manage. He had been a wonderful teacher.
"You don't know anything about me. You didn't know me then and you certainly don't know me now. I'm not the girl I used to be. I'm a business woman who operates a strip club, for crying out loud. You and everyone else back home needs to get that through their simplistic, countrified heads. Now that you've said what you've come to say, why don't you jump in your big redneck truck and drive back home to little Miss Becky? Make sure to tell my brother that I have no intention of coming back."
"You used to care what people thought about you, Ang. Now look at you. What would your momma say if she were alive to see what you’ve become?"
"I can't believe this! For six fucking years I haven't heard a single peep out of you and then you randomly show up on my doorstep and suggest that my momma would be disappointed in me? Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I only want what's best for you. That's all I've ever wanted."
Pick your jaw up from the driveway and handle this with the same steely resolve you use at the club, she told herself. "You have got some nerve," she steamed.
Turning on her heel, Angie stormed toward the house. It was 6 AM. It wouldn't do for the upper middle class neighbors to hear her air the family's dirty, Arkansas laundry. Cutter was quick to follow. Opening the door, she curtly waved h
im inside and made her way into the kitchen. Yanking the fridge open, she snatched out bottled water, tossed one at him without asking or looking and took one for herself. After a long draw from the plastic container, she stormed to the living room. This was un-freaking believable.
"Nice place." His attempt to change the subject was awkward, but so was having him in her house. It was the first time he had seen her within the confines of the new life she had created. It had to be as strange for him as it was for her, but either way, she wanted nothing more than to kick him out on his ass. At the same time, a part of her wanted to find out the real motive behind his visit.
"Thanks. I like it," she said as calmly as possible. Shouting at him wouldn't do anything but upset the situation and she was eager to get to the meat of the matter. Sinking into the leather sofa, she sighed. Letting her head fall back to rest on the cushions, Angie stared at the ceiling while collecting her thoughts. She was tired and didn't want to deal with this right now. Her two-for-one night had turned into a three-for-one. First it had been Mr. Benson, then Dean and now Cutter.
Two of the three she dealt with on a regular basis, but never in a million years did she think she would see Cutter again, especially in her own house. She avoided making trips home just because she dreaded the idea of running into him, even briefly. He represented everything she could have been and everything she had become. He was responsible for giving her the best years of her life as well as the worst time of her life; truly a double-edged sword.
"Angie, I messed up and I'm sorry."
It was as if he had shouted the words instead of whispering them and it was the first time since their break-up that he had said them. Old grievances were forced to the surface of her broken psyche as the simple confession snaked around her heart and squeezed. Closing weary eyes, she allowed the pieces of a broken past to fall into place.
Somewhere in the remote regions of every injured being lies a sliver of expectant forgiveness. Digging into the profound reasoning within, she somehow found the courage to accept his words as truth. Lifting a heavy head, Angie gazed into the eyes of the man who had stolen her future and who had forced her to create a new one. "I've waited a long time to hear you say that."
"I've waited a long time to say it, Ang. I screwed up and I know that. I was an idiot for doing what I did. I want nothing more than to erase the past, but I can't erase what I did. I can only hope to start over. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need your forgiveness. I want us to start fresh." His big brown eyes penetrated places within her soul that had lain dormant since she'd closed the door on them shortly after leaving home.
The naïve girl from Arkansas would have wrapped her arms around the man and forgiven him of his sins while trying to fix the damage he had caused. The woman, who now lived in Texas and owned a gentlemen's club, would not reopen a door she had so painstakingly slammed shut and sealed with heartache, anger and tears. Forgiveness was difficult enough. Starting over, not an option.
"You need me to forgive you? Why? So, you can run back to Arkansas with your dignity intact? I needed you, Cutter. I needed you to be there for me…for us. We dated for five years. Five. Long. Years." Taking a shallow breath, she steadied her voice before jumping up from the couch. "Hell, we dated for three years of high school and I assumed we were dating while I was away at college. At least you led me to believe that each time I came home during school vacations and summer break. Imagine my surprise when I announced that I was pregnant with your child and you promptly announced that Becky was, too! Really? What kind of a creep does that? And then to top it all off, when I lost our child, you didn't even bother to make a real effort to see me. Instead, you run off and marry her. Of all people, why her? What did I do to deserve that? She was my best friend, Cutter."
"You refused to talk to me after I told you about Becky, and for good reason. You thought that I—we—had betrayed you. I can't tell you enough how often I have kicked myself in the ass over that."
"I thought you had betrayed me? Denial much? Getting my best friend pregnant while you were still dating me was betrayal."
Rather than acknowledge her statement, he continued. "When your brother told me that you had lost the baby, I wanted to come see you."
Fighting to hold back the tears threatening to spring out of her eyes, she asked, "Then why didn't you? I didn't exactly live inside a heavily guarded military compound you know."
"Have you met your brother?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood. His attempt fell flat. "I did try but you vehemently refused to see me or take my calls. After so many botched attempts, I realized that nothing I could do or say would change what had happened between us. I didn't want to hurt you more than I already had. When I found out about the baby, I was devastated. Within days of the news, my dad insisted that I do the right thing by Becky since she was still pregnant. So I did. I married her."
This was the first time the two of them had actually come together to discuss the loss of their child. Once she had learned that he and Becky had eloped, Angie hightailed it out of Arkansas and never looked back.
The need to escape the hurt of his betrayal had ultimately been the defining moment which had carved out a future she never would have predicted. Now, after all this time, he was apologizing. The outcome of the discussion rested solely on her shoulders and she knew it. Forgiving him would be the proper thing to do if she truly wanted to heal, but releasing the anger that had driven her for all these years might alter the woman she had become. Her broken past was the foundation she had used to build her new life upon. If she buried the hatchet and forgave him for the damage he had inflicted upon her, would it repair her jaded soul? She wasn't certain, but a new chapter was on the horizon and she wasn't the type to back down from a challenge.
"My brother told me that you and Becky were having problems? Is that why you're here?" She could only assume it was. The grass is always greener on the other side when trouble is afoot, her grandmother had always said.
"Yes and no," he said with honest intent.
The boy she once knew had been replaced by the man before her, she quietly deduced. His features had filled out and his boyish face was more mature. It would be impossible to deny that she was still attracted to him. But closed doors were closed for a reason.
"Angie, I know how selfish this is going to sound, but for five years you were my universe. Granted, that got messed up, but it is the truth. You know, or knew me better than anyone else. Every day I have spent without you has been a nightmare. I never stopped thinking about you…about us. Up until now, I had Billy to fill the void left by your disappearance, and most days it worked, but then I found out the truth and my world was changed. I needed someone to talk to, someone who gets me. There is only one person, besides your brother, that fits the bill and that's you. I had to get out of town and I didn't know where else to turn."
"What truth are you talking about?"
"Billy isn't my son. Becky lied about everything." His quivering lips and watering eyes make it impossible for her not to see the honesty behind the statement.
As bitter as she was because of their past, no one deserved to learn that the son they thought was theirs, wasn't. "Tell me you and Becky are just mad at one another and you've gone off the deep end?"
"I haven't gone off the deep end. It's true."
"That's horrible. Are you sure?"
"Without a doubt."
"What happened? How did you find out?" Becky had been a lot of things, but Angie never would have put conniving on that list.
"It's a small town. People talk. Hell, Ang. You know how it is," he said running his hand over his head. "Your brother finally had enough of the rumors and shared his concerns with me. At first I was furious with the messenger, but I know Buddy. He never would spout out random gossip so I knew it was more than idle chat. When I asked Becky about it, she denied it but that wasn't enough. I had to know. I secretly called around until I found a clinic that performed DNA testing. I took Bi
lly and the rest is history. Becky and Billy moved in with her parents and she refuses to allow me to see him. The problem is, I didn't care that he wasn't biologically mine. I love that boy as if he was my flesh and blood. It was the fact that Becky lied to me for all those years. She lied to my family, to me, to Billy, to the whole damned town. What hurt the worst was that because of her lies, I lost you."
"No. You lost me the moment you had sex with her."
"That's the thing. I didn't sleep with her."
"You never slept with her?" Her tone suggested he was a child who was being given a second chance to come clean.
"Well, I did, but not until after we were married," he claimed, lowering his head.
Stop the presses and rewind the tape because the bullshit meter just topped its old record. Maybe I should throw him a rope so he can save himself before it is too late, she pondered silently. Shaking her head, she rephrased the question.
"Are you telling me that you didn't sleep with Becky until after you were married to her?" This was his last 'get out of bullshit for free' card and she really hoped he used it. In the meantime, she curled her legs beneath her and settled in for what was sure to be an intriguing story. Minus pajamas and a big bowl of butter flavored popcorn, she was ready for the Arkansas soap opera to unfold.
Bare Assets Page 2